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& Holtz v. Maura
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STATEMENT OF FACTS
Appellant Maura Larkins Opening Brief
re San Diego Superior Court Injunction re website
Filed by Maura Larkins in California Court of Appeal October 29, 2010


Since the constitutionality of the injunction at issue in this appeal is purely a matter of
law, the details of the case might not seem absolutely necessary, but the Court may
want to know how this curious injunction came into being.  The court abused its
discretion on several occasions in this case, but Defendant/Appellant doubts that
abuse of discretion needs to be considered in deciding the current case.

A.        The Injunction at issue in this appeal states, in pertinent part:
.          “Due to Defendant’s continued circumvention of this Court’s orders, the Court
hereby modifies the Injunction to prevent Defendant from making any mention of
Plaintiff law firm or any of its attorneys, past or present.  Defendant is enjoined and
restrained from continuing to publish or republishing, by any method or media,
including but not limited to all electronic data, websites and web pages, any
statements pertaining to Plaintiff and any of its lawyers, past or present, and future
publication of statements with regard to Plaintiff and its lawyers.  Defendant is
ordered to remove all mention of Plaintiff and any of its lawyers, past or present, from
her websites or websites under her control within twenty days.”
B.        The following four statements constitute the entire justification for the
December 11, 2009 permanent injunction against Defendant:
1“Who trains school attorneys?  Attorneys who have helped schools avoid revealing
events in schools are in charge of training both new board members and new school
attorneys…X X trains board members and employees as well as attorneys.”
2. “One of X X’s specialties is planning legal tactics against parents who complain
that their kids aren’t getting the right education.”
3.“X should be ashamed of misusing the suffering of his wife’s relatives to gain an
advantage in the courtroom.”
4.  “A WAS THE NUMBER 2 OFFICIAL IN THE OFFICE OF CITY ATTORNEY when
the city made deals which the SEC and the FBI are now investigating.  Perhaps this
one bit of information explains why A is outraged at Aguirre’s efforts to expose the
facts about actions by public officials!  The law firm of W, Z, X & V, to which the
SDCOE JPA steers the lion’s share of its cases, is closely tied to right-wing
Republicans such as Lesley A.  A joined the W law firm after losing to Michael Aguirre
in the race for San Diego City Attorney.  A has recently admitted that if she had been
elected, she would HAVE HELPED city officials and employees, not the public,
regarding the secret 2002 pension underfunding deal.  I think the city attorney
should, in the public interest, demand explanations from officials.”
C. Discovery
      Plaintiff’s official representative, Z Z, walked out of his deposition (I AA 117) after
two hours and Plaintiff’s attorney X X, the member of Plaintiff’s law firm who was most
prominently featured on Defendant’s website, refused to show up for his noticed
deposition.  In addition to noticing depositions, Defendant had requested Production
of documents, specifying certain missing pages of a set of Bate-stamped documents
related to statements on Defendant’s website.  The documents had been collected
by Mr. X in 2001 at the school where Defendant was teaching.  Plaintiff claimed that
its paralegal could not find the documents.  Defendant filed a Motion to Compel
Depositions and Production of Documents (I AA 26).  The motion was denied (I AA
63), citing procedural errors.  This decision was an abuse of discretion in regard to
the deposition of X X since no separate statement should have been required to
compel a deposition that had never begun.
D. Judge's reasoning in summary judgment
The Summary Judgment decision did not specify any specific statement or
statements found by the judge to be defamatory, so Defendant removed all the
statements from her website.  To this day, Defendant does not know whether whether
one, some or all of the statements at issue were found by the judge to be defamatory
(I AA 401).  
The court’s decision (II AA 401) to throw out Defendant’s declaration ()in its entirety)
was an abuse of discretion, particularly since the judge relied on the declarations of
Z Z (I AA 258b-d) and X X (I AA 259; declaration exhibits on pages 230-242) in
making her decision.   A reasonable person would have more doubts about the
reliability of someone who had lost documents and refused to be deposed, or had
walked out of his deposition, than someone who had, as Appellant did, sat for a full
six-hour deposition and produced hundreds of documents.  Inexplicably, the judge in
her summary judgment decision failed to point out her personal knowledge of the
truth of the statement "X X keeps documents locked up in his files" (exhibit 18--"fact"
number 10) (I AA 264). Instead, the judge left the impression that she had found the
statement to be defamatory.  
Defendant removed all the statements mentioned in the Motion for Summary
Judgment from her website since the judge did not specify whether one, some or all
of her statements at issue had been found to be defamatory.  
Four days after the summary judgment decision, Plaintiff filed a request for a
restraining order against Defendant (II AA 454b) on the basis that Defendant had
weeks earlier tried to serve a deposition subpoena on an executive at San Diego
County Office of Education.  Plaintiff’s request was summarily denied by a judge
other than Judge Judith Hayes (II AA 454a).  
E. Motion to Enforce Injunction
Plaintiff filed a Motion to Enforce Injunction, claiming that Defendant had not gone far
enough in censoring her website (exhibit 34) (II AA 480).  Plaintiff complained that
Defendant’s description of the firm as “aggressive” was a violation of the April 6,
2009 injunction, even though the injunction concerned only accusations of illegal,
unethical, intimidating or incompetent behavior.  
On August 7, 2009 the court ruled that Defendant had violated the injunction, but did
not indicate whether one, some or all of the statements at issue were defamatory
(exhibit 37) (III AA 655a-c).  Defendant removed some of the statements from her
website, but kept other statements that did not accuse Plaintiff of illegal, unethical,
intimidating or incompetent behavior.  
Then the court interpreted the stipulated injunction to mean that defendant could not
report any facts about Plaintiff, even facts reported by Plaintiff to reporters and
published in local newspapers, if the court found that those facts described actions
which the court found to be illegal or unethical.
Plaintiff then filed a Motion to Strike Answer and Enter Default (exhibit 38) (II AA 656),
specifying five statements on Defendant’s website (exhibit 38) (II AA page 658).  
Defendant removed one of the statements from her website, but kept the other
statements on her website.  These four statements constitute the entire reason for
the existence of the injunction at issue in this appeal.  (See section B above for the
four statements.)
Plaintiff discussed a fifth statement in its motion, but that statement had been
removed from her website by Defendant.  The fifth statement was, “Attorney Dan X
fools the US Office of Civil Rights…In fact, W law firm itself used the courts to try to
force a paid expert witness to testify as the school district wished” [Vista Unified
School District v. Dr. B. J. Freeman, a case that was wisely dropped by the school
district in its early stages].”   Defendant has made a sincere effort to obey the
stipulated injunction, and in order to err on the side of caution, removed the
statement because it contained the words “fooled the Office of Civil Rights” and
“used the court to try to force a paid expert witness to testify as the school district
wished.”  It is a simple fact  that W law firm filed a lawsuit against a psychologist
because she refused to testify in support of Vista Unified School District’s
determination that a specific child was ineligible for special education, but Defendant
is willing to go out of her way not to publish  her own opinions about the legality and
ethics of Plaintiff’s actions.  Defendant does, however, realize now that the stipulated
injunction amounted to a blatant subterfuge by Plaintiff and Judge Hayes, and is
unconstitutionally broad, as proven by the infinite vastness of statements that it
prohibits in the interpretation of the Superior Court, and unconstitutionally vague, as  
proven by the fact that it has been interpreted by the Superior Court to mean
something completely different from what Defendant understood when she agreed to
it.  
F. On October 30, 2010 the court issued a minute order (exhibit 44) (III AA 748)
stating:
“The Court amends the injunction to reflect that Defendant is ordered to remove from
her website(s) any and all reference to Plaintiff or any of it’s (sic) former or current
employees within 20 days.”
The Superior Court’s October 30, 2009 minute order on the Motion to Strike Answer
(exhibit 44) (III AA 748) failed to address whether the court found that one, some or
all of the four statements violated the injunction, but implied in her remarks at the
hearing on October 30, 2009 that at least some of the statements did violate the
injunction (RT 98-103).  How could these statements violate the injunction?  The
court’s cryptic decisions since August 7, 2009 allow only one conclusion: the court
interpreted the stipulated injunction to mean that defendant could not report any
facts about Plaintiff, even facts reported by Plaintiff to reporters and published in
local newspapers, if the court found that those facts described actions which the
court found to be illegal or unethical.
Judge Hayes appears to have agreed with statements in Plaintiff’s motion in which
Plaintiff argued that certain statements by Defendant to be violations of the stipulated
injunction on the basis that the actions described constituted illegal or unethical
behavior.  In these statements, Defendant did not accuse Plaintiff of illegal or
unethical behavior, and in fact does not believe that the actions constitute illegal or
unethical behavior.  For example, the statement “One of X X’s specialties is planning
legal tactics against parents who complain that their kids aren’t getting the right
education” is a simple statement of fact.  It describes the job that Mr. X is paid to do.  
It is neither illegal nor unethical for Mr. X to do this job.  It is an abuse of discretion for
the court to call such statements a violation of the stipulated injunction.  In order to
violate the injunction, Defendant would have to say that Mr. X’s actions were illegal or
unethical.  In this case, it is Plaintiff and the court who are saying that Plaintiff’s
actions were illegal or unethical.  The whole lawsuit seems to be thrown into question
when we have Plaintiff now describing its own actions as unethical--and the judge
agreeing with Plaintiff.
Following up on the October 30, 2009 minute order, Plaintiff prepared the injunction
order on which this appeal is based, which was signed on December 11, 2009
(exhibit 46) (IV AA 785).  The order includes only a general statement about
Defendant's compliance with the April 6, 2009 stipulated injunction rather than
specifying any statement on Defendant’s website that violated the injunction.   The
order stated that:
“The Court finds that Defendant has not complied with the Injunction or this Court’s
orders and continues to attempt to circumvent the Injunction.  The Court further finds
that Defendant has been unwilling to modify her websites in good faith.”
G. Note regarding Reporter’s Transcript of February 20, 2009 Summary Judgment
hearing
Defendant notes that there are two sections of the hearing that are omitted from the
transcript.  The first is a sentence spoken by Defendant to the effect that the
depositions in the case had been published by the Federal Court and were available
on the Internet on the PACER website.  The second omission is the part of the
hearing that took place after Maura Larkins had been ordered by the bailiff to leave
the courtroom.  Larkins was escorted out of the courtroom while the judge and
Plaintiff’s attorney Jeffrey Wade carried on a dialogue to which Larkins was not privy
(See Objections to Summary Judgment and Declaration of Maura Larkins).  However,
this part of the transcript is not essential for making a decision on the constitutionality
of the injunction.
See decision
University of San Diego (USD) law professor Shaun Martin represented Maura Larkins pro bono in
the Court of Appeal.  He is the author of the blog
California Appellate Report.
August 5, 2011 UPDATE:
California Court of Appeal decision: Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz v. Maura Larkins injunction is overturned
Story in Voice of San Diego
Stutz attorney Daniel Shinoff is the favorite attorney of San Diego County Office of Education.
Blog posts about this case (23)
Injunction Appeal
Procedural History
Statement of Facts
Argument
Reply
Stutz' Respndents Brief
December 11, 2009
Injunction

“Due to Defendant’s continued
circumvention of this Court’s
orders, the Court hereby
modifies the Injunction to
prevent Defendant from making
any mention of Plaintiff law firm
or any of its attorneys, past or
present.  Defendant is enjoined
and restrained from continuing
to publish or republishing, by
any method or media, including
but not limited to all electronic
data, websites and web pages,
any statements pertaining to
Plaintiff and any of its lawyers,
past or present, and future
publication of statements with
regard to Plaintiff and its
lawyers.  Defendant is ordered
to remove all mention of
Plaintiff and any of its lawyers,
past or present, from her
websites or websites under her
control within twenty days.”
The four statements that
triggered the injunction
below:

1 “Who trains school attorneys?  
Attorneys who have helped schools
avoid revealing events in schools are
in charge of training both new board
members and new school
attorneys…Mr. X trains board
members and employees as well as
attorneys.”

2.        “One of Mr. X’s specialties
is planning legal tactics against
parents who complain that their
kids aren’t getting the right
education.”

3.        “Mr. X should be ashamed
of misusing the suffering of his
wife’s relatives to gain an
advantage in the courtroom.”

4.  “MS. A WAS THE NUMBER 2
OFFICIAL IN THE OFFICE OF CITY
ATTORNEY when the city made
deals which the SEC and the FBI are
now investigating.  Perhaps this one
bit of information explains why Ms. A
is outraged at Aguirre’s efforts to
expose the facts about actions by
public officials!  [Plaintiff's law firm] to
which the SDCOE JPA steers the lion’
s share of its cases, is closely tied to
right-wing Republicans such as Ms.
A.  Ms. A joined the Stutz law firm
after losing to Michael Aguirre in the
race for San Diego City Attorney.  
Ms. A has recently admitted that if
she had been elected, she would
HAVE HELPED city officials and
employees, not the public, regarding
the secret 2002 pension
underfunding deal.  I think the city
attorney should, in the public
interest, demand explanations from
officials.”

Plaintiff discussed a fifth statement in
its motion, but that statement had
been removed from her website by
Defendant since Defendant.  The
fifth statement was, “Attorney Dan
Shinoff fools the US Office of Civil
Rights…In fact, Stutz law firm itself
used the courts to try to force a paid
expert witness to testify as the school
district wished” [Vista Unified School
District v. Dr. B. J. Freeman, a case
that was wisely dropped by the
school district in its early stages].”   
Defendant has made a sincere effort
to obey the stipulated injunction, and
in order to err on the side of caution,
removed the statement because it
contained the words “fooled the
Office of Civil Rights” and “used the
court to try to force a paid expert
witness to testify as the school district
wished.”  It is a simple fact  that
Plaintiff's law firm filed a lawsuit
against a psychologist because she
refused to testify in support of Vista
Unified School District’s
determination that a specific child
was ineligible for special education,
but Defendant is willing to go out of
her way not to publish  her own
opinions about the legality and ethics
of Plaintiff’s actions.  Defendant
does, however, realize now that the
stipulated injunction amounted to a
blatant subterfuge by Plaintiff and
Judge Hayes, and is
unconstitutionally broad, as proven
by the infinite vastness of statements
that it prohibits in the interpretation of
the Superior Court, and
unconstitutionally vague, as  proven
by the fact that it has been
interpreted by the Superior Court to
mean something completely different
from what Defendant understood
when she agreed to it.  
Lawyers
Blog posts about this case
Now the true identities of
the lawyers in the
statements below can be
revealed:
Mr. "X" is Daniel Shinoff.  
Ms. "A" is Leslie Devaney.
San Diego
Education Report